


Cicatrix

by amorremanet



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Community: hc_bingo, Comnunity: kink_bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Kissing, M/M, Past Abuse, Scars, Self-Harm, Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Running with Derek Hale's pack means running with a family—or at least, that's how he puts it to Isaac. …And it's not that Isaac doubts Derek; it's just that he has more than enough experience with disappointment.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cicatrix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [setos_puppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/setos_puppy/gifts).



> prompts used are: "grief" for hc_bingo, and "worship" for kink_bingo.

Isaac sighs, glancing around the lair, bristling in his jeans, failing to stifle the shiver that courses up his spine. Erica's curled up in the subway car, sleeping over after a fight with her parents, and Isaac's got no clue where Boyd's gotten off to, at the moment. Probably home. Derek, at least, is supposed to be out handling some kind of so-called "business" with Scott. Whatever the Hell that's supposed to mean. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Not really.

As long as neither of them are here, Derek and Boyd—as long as Erica doesn't wake up—whatever all they want to get up to is no sweat off Isaac's nose. Huffing, he dashes across the floor, into the bathroom. He shuts the door behind him, but doesn't lock it. Just jumps right into flicking on the lights, wriggling out his t-shirt, inspecting his reflection and tracing his fingers all over his stomach, his chest, his arms. Brushing them up and down the tangled web of old wounds.

Running with Derek Hale's pack means running with a family—or at least, that's how he puts it to Isaac. Even before they pick up Erica and Boyd, he promised that. And it's not that Isaac doubts this or doubts Derek; it's just that he has more than enough experience with disappointment, in this regard. With families letting him down and hurting him—his history spells itself out in the map of old scars along his body—and maybe it's just Isaac, but he doesn't see how he needs to add anything new. He doesn't have a reason to trust that this whole werewolf thing will really fix anything for him.

It hasn't worked out that well for Isaac yet, anyway. He has to train, learn all kinds of new survival skills. He has to let Derek beat the shit out of him because it's eventually going to teach him something. He's still a fugitive over a crime he didn't commit, for all the times he thought of doing it. There's nowhere he can really go but the lair—even going out with the rest of the pack is dangerous enough that he can't risk it too often. Getting turned hasn't even fixed some of the smallest, simplest things yet.

After all, Isaac still has these scars, all these reminders of things he'd rather forget. He can't see the spot where Derek bit him anymore—but he still has the cigarette burns on the insides of his arms; and the red line on his unbitten hip (where he landed on broken glass after a fight with Dad and needed to get stitches at two in the morning); and the faded, pinkish-white mark over his collarbone (from the time his brother knocked him around in the backyard, and Isaac lost a fight with a tree branch). Lycanthropy heals everything else—so why hasn't it gone and repaired these old scars?

"Everything all right?" someone says—and Isaac gasps, jumps—their voice is barely above a whisper, but hits the air like gunshot—he only breathes a sigh of relief when he turns away from the mirror. Sees Derek leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets and a scrunched, twisted up expression on his face. Isaac wants to call it concerned, but he has some reservations about doing that just yet.

Derek huffs, shuts the door behind him, and clicks the lock. He says again, "Is everything okay, Isaac?"—and before Isaac can even think about saying anything, Derek's wandering toward him, into his personal space, then even closer. "Anything I can help with?"

Isaac shakes his head—he starts to speak, but loses track of his voice when Derek's hand falls to his neck. Derek's fingers trail down his Adam's apple and the dip above his collarbone—then they pause, press into the scar—and Isaac inhales sharply, deeply. He tries to hold his breath, and despite his effort, it comes out in a shuddering sigh. Derek mutters something quietly, asking if Isaac minds this, if it's okay that he's doing this, if Isaac would mind a kiss. And Isaac shakes his head again—somehow manages to say that he really, really doesn't mind at all…

But about the last thing he expects is for Derek to kiss his scar. To feel Derek's chapped lips brush over it so gently—he might as well be handling a precious antique, something fragile—which Isaac refuses to be, which his body's new ability to heal says he isn't anymore. Shivering, Isaac takes a step back and braces himself against the sink with both hands, gripping onto the edge for dear life. Derek blinks at him, confused, but picks up where he left off once Isaac nods, hisses that it's still okay, he was just startled, he didn't mean for Derek to stop—

"No, really," he says, locking his eyes on Derek's. "It's fine, I promise it is. …Please, keep going?"

So, Derek blinks up at him, with a look that might as well be nodding, and he moves lower down Isaac's torso, drags his lips over Isaac's breast, all the places where bruises have healed, down to the scar on Isaac's hip—which is where he pauses, kneeling in before Isaac, breath whispering—warm and thick and heavy—up against his skin. Derek curls his free hand up around Isaac's waist, digs his thumb in without letting his claws slip loose—it's all probably to keep himself steady, for all it feels like Derek wants to reassure Isaac that he's here and that he isn't going anywhere. And he kisses the scar, gentler than he's kissed anywhere else and still more insistent.

Derek sighs against the line of gnarled skin, flicks his tongue out against the ragged edge, nuzzles at it with his teeth—for as sharp as they are, that's the only word for what he does. "They're not going to go away, Isaac," he says, voice low and rumbling. "The bite only heals new injuries. The rest… They freeze in place. Just like these."

"So they're always going to be like this?" Isaac says, and wishes that he wouldn't whine so much. He doesn't even mean to do it—the whimpering tone just slips out. "I can never get rid of them?"

Derek shakes his head, nudging his nose and cheek up against Isaac's stomach. "Afraid not," he huffs, and reaches to curl his free hand around Isaac's wrist. He tugs, brings Isaac's arm over and closer to him—yanks Isaac down by it, doubling him over, just so he can kiss one of the old burns. The one nestled up in the crook of Isaac's elbow. "But they're nothing to be ashamed of—"

"Maybe I'm not _ashamed_ ," Isaac nigh on snaps, sounds harsher than he intends—but at least it's enough to make Derek startle, wrinkle his nose and brow in a total lack of understanding. "Maybe I just don't like being reminded of where they're from. Or what they mean? You thought about that possibility, right?"

Derek nods, and skirts his teeth along the skin of Isaac's arm, licks a gentle curve around Isaac's burn, then licks the scar itself. "But I also considered that they're not quite what you think they are," he says. He works his whole mouth over the scar, lips and teeth and tongue all moving against it softly—but without the over-tenderness from before, the patronizing _but what if I break you_ bullshit—he sighs and nips at the scar. Not even hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to remind Isaac that he's here, that he sees all of this and isn't scared of it.

"Your scars aren't a sign of weakness, Isaac," he says, finally glancing up, squeezing harder at Isaac's hip and wrist. His whole face is tied up in seriousness, in knots that beg Isaac to listen to everything he's saying—to _understand_. "They're a sign of your strength, to me."

He pauses everything—the kissing, the talking, _everything_ —for long enough that Isaac coughs, whimpers. Has to ask what the Hell Derek even means by that, because the silence creeps up his skin, up the back of his neck, and starts making him feel sick. And all Derek does is kiss over Isaac's wrist—over the faded burn and the thin lines from where Isaac's been the one to hurt himself, the ones that have almost faded into Isaac's skin. He sighs from the pit of his chest, breathes over the scars, kneads his thumb into the bone in Isaac's wrist.

"They're a sign," Derek whispers, "that you're still standing, after all you've been through. That you've endured a trial by fire and come out the other side. To me? They say that you're indomitable, Isaac. _Indomitable_."


End file.
